I sometimes suffer from deer in the head lights syndrome. Before doing anything, I psych myself out thinking “all the things that need to get done”, all the things “I don’t know” and “how will I make it perfect” thoughts. I read constantly about a topic but I never do…

The only way I can get myself out of that mode is to simply throw myself at the task/idea and start doing. Fail over and over, learning from each experience until one day I can look back and say, “Hey I actually do that pretty well now.”

My hard drives at work, home and in my laptop are littered with useless half projects where I was attempting to get an idea or approach thought though. Travel down one path, fail, done. Travel down another path, fail, done.

Here is the gist of what I was trying to accomplish. Please excuse the VB.. it’s not by choice. 8)

Basically the page I was working on has a set of switch statements based on string literals which annoys me.. So I was messing around with a way to use Enumerations to represent my commands. But the commands come back as strings from the various page controls.. So I was looking at a way to generically re-map back to the command Enumeration.

So I have been living with my Mac Book Pro for a couple months now. I have purposely tried to use OSX for day to day things to force myself to get used to the OS. Here is a nice list of the applications that I have found useful so far.

This list is in no way targeted at long time Mac fans. Instead it is intended for newb/converts like me who are getting used to a whole new environment of software.

Quick Silver – Awesome tool for launching applications or finding documents. Simply hit Ctrl+Space and start typing what it is you want.. QuickSilver will display a list of items that match what you are typing. Once you have typed a set of letters and selected something QuickSilver will learn what you wanted and begin suggesting that thing faster… for example I can type Ctrl-Space, VM, Enter and launch VM Ware…. It’s a cool app.

Adium – Multi-Service messaging client very similar to Pigden. Can connect to MSN, ICQ, AOL, Facebook, GTalk, MySpace and many others.

Colloquy – Pretty straight forward IRC client if you are into that sort of thing.

Remote Desktop Mac – This combined with with VPN connection to work is awesome. There is pretty much nothing I can’t do now with my Mac and a network connection.

Twitterrific – Simple twitter client if you are into that sort of thing.

MonoDevelop – Mono is the open source implementation of the .NET framework. MonoDevelop a IDE for developing using Mono. If you ever wondered what it would be like without Visual Studio here you go.

XCode – The free IDE for developing on the Mac. Want to make a IPhone app? Here you go. Objective C is fun… really it is…

Bonus Tips: Be sure to enable Spaces via the Expose & Spaces menu. This lets you have the sliding desktop effect that I use all the time. A neat keyboard combo is Function+F8, this displays all your spaces on the screen and you can click one to go to that space. Expose is Function+F8 this will shrink all the windows on your screen and lay them out so that you can see them all. Then click the window you want and they all go back where they were with the one you selected in focus.

Bonus Bonus Tip: The World of Warcraft Mac client runs like a champ on my MBP. 😉

UPDATE: Wanted to update this item to give credit to Shane Frost for creating these movies. Shane is no longer with Alliance, but after having watched these movies I would welcome him back any time. Hope things are working out well for you at the state Shane.

I have been getting hounded by our webmaster to supply a bio for our company bio page. Here is my first stab at it:

Bobby Johnson is a Senior Development Specialist and joined Alliance Enterprises in September 2008. Bobby is an Agile fanatic, Domain Driven Design enthusiast and Unit Testing maven who is not afraid to run with scissors. Bobby attended Southwest Missouri State University prior to bailing out to seek fame and fortune. He previously could not be contained by the Washington State Department of Labor & Industries or the Red Wind Casino.

Bobby Johnson is a Senior Development Specialist. He joined Alliance Enterprises in September 2008. Bobby is involved with the implementation of the agile approach to development and also developing Unit Testing for the AWARE system. Prior to joining Alliance, Bobby worked at the Washington State Department of Labor & Industries as a Development Specialist.

I’ll be leaving my current place of employment this coming Friday. In an effort to not lose any of the awesome tools and resources I have found while working here, I am going to document them in a blog post.